Poll: Are You Concerned about Your Bank After the Collapse of IndyMac?

In the past few days, I heard a lot of news about the collapse of IndyMac bank and how anxious depositors arrived 4:00 am in the morning at the door of the bank’s branch offices in CA, hoping to get they hard earned money out as soon as possible. Though for most of the bank’s customers, their deposits are safe under the FDIC insurance (guaranteed for up to $100,000 of course), just having to go through this process is pretty stressful. At the same time, I also feel lucky that I don’t have this problem for now. My bank, Bank of America, looks pretty safe, even though it also suffered from billions of dollars of write down tied to bad loans and its stock has come down sharply.

Actually, since we only have a few thousands of dollars with BoA, the loss won’t be as severe even if the bank closes its door tomorrow. Most of savings are with online banks such as FNBO Direct and Capital One, which so far are not affected as bad as other banks are. But this doesn’t mean that I am not concerned about my banks. In this environment, you can’t be too careful about your money.

You should always look for signs that your bank may be in trouble, such as steep drop of stock prices or sudden raise of interest rate, etc. and ask why. Also the FDIC website has a lot of information about banks that you should check out in case you have questions about your bank’s soundness. And if you are not comfortable with your bank’s situation, maybe switching to a bank that you can feel confident isn’t such a bad idea. According to a NY Times report a couple of days ago, that “as many as 150 out of the 7,500 banks nationwide could fail over the next 12 to 18 months.” That’s not a pretty picture.

So now, after all the turmoil in the banking sector, are you concerned about your bank?

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